Several projects from Kildare schools were honoured at this year's BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition at the RDS, it was revealed at the awards ceremony this evening.

The overall victor of this year's BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition was 15-year-old Simon Meehan from Cork, who has won €7,500, the BTYSTE Perpetual Trophy and a trip to Bletchley Park in England.

The student at the Ballycollig school won for his investigation into the medicinal qualities of plants in fighting disease.

Meehan Simon selected nine locally sourced plants, such as asparagus, nettles and blackberries, to test for the presence of chemicals which could potentially be used to control bacterial infection.

The project saw Meehan seek to find a natural remedy capable of killing the common human bacteria Staphylococcus aureus, a malady that has become increasingly resistant to conventional antibiotics.

BT Young Scientist judge John O'Halloran, who chairs the biological and ecological sciences category, commented: "This is a really exciting project which explores the possibilities of the blackberry leaf extract's ability to control harmful bacteria".

The rigour of the approach adopted by Simon set his project apart from competitors and made him our overall victor. Meanwhile, the group runners-up were Darragh Twomey, Neil O'Leary and Andrew Heffernan from Colaiste Treasa in Kanturk, Cork, for a project called 'Feeding 9.6 billion people by 2050′. The pair also took a special award from the Health Product Regulatory Authority for the project.

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